


Cats Know These Things

by Small_Hobbit



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 10:57:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13545918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Small_Hobbit/pseuds/Small_Hobbit
Summary: Sitting around the kitchen table, Sister Evangelina remembers an event from 1946.





	Cats Know These Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nisiedraws](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nisiedraws/gifts).



Sister Evangelina sat down at the kitchen table with a sigh of relief.  The clinic had been very busy and she was relishing the chance to have a quiet cup of tea.  Then she quickly rose to her feet again and leant over to move the fruit cake from in front of Sister Monica Joan.

“That cake is for tea for all of us,” she admonished.  “If you continue eating at that rate the others will come back to an empty plate.”

“I do not know how it came to be before me,” Sister Monica Joan said.  “Perhaps it felt neglected.”

Sister Evangelina snorted and then looked up as she heard Sister Julienne laugh.  “I’ve just made a fresh pot if you want to pour yourself a cup,” she added.

Sister Julienne did so and then joined them at the table.  “Where did the cake come from?” she asked.

“Grateful thanks from Mrs Lovell, grandmother of the baby girl we delivered yesterday evening, and her first grandchild.”

“I am sure I remember Mrs Lovell,” Sister Monica Joan said, “but it is not a recent memory, nor did the name of her daughter mean anything to me.”

“I’m not surprised you remember her,” Sister Evangelina said.  “But this was her oldest daughter who was giving birth.  You’re thinking of her youngest, Josephine.”

“Ah yes, Napoleon’s consort.”

“Napoleon?” Sister Julienne queried.

Sister Monica Joan nodded.  “Napoleon was a cat.”

Sister Julienne looked helplessly at Sister Evangelina, who smiled and said, “Napoleon played a vital role.  It was the year after the war finished.  Fred Lovell called us to say his wife was only at the beginning of labour, but she seemed very agitated and he thought something must be going wrong, because she’d had no problem with any of the other children.  So Sister Monica Joan and I hurried over there to find Mrs Lovell was indeed upset and kept saying ‘the cat, the cat’.”

“They know, you see,” added Sister Monica Joan.

“Initially we thought Mrs Lovell had an infection which was causing her to behave like this.  But when I went to put the kettle on, I saw the cat was behaving in a strange fashion.  I opened the back door to put the cat out, and heard the unmistakeable ticking of an unexploded bomb.  Fortunately since Mrs Lovell was only in the early stages of labour we were able to bring her here, and the family and those around them also evacuated the houses.  Bomb disposal dealt with the bomb and there was very little damage.  Mrs Lovell was delivered of a baby girl about an hour after she arrived here.”

“And the baby was called Josephine,” Sister Julienne said.

“I think the name was chosen because of Mrs Lovell’s father, but everyone said it was because of Napoleon the cat’s timely actions.”

Sister Julienne laughed and then said, “Sister Monica Joan is that your third slice of cake?”

“Oh dear,” Sister Monica Joan replied, “I was so engrossed in the story.”

Sister Evangelina sighed, put the cake back in the tin and firmly pushed the lid on.

 


End file.
